Drunk on a Plane
by southofhome
Summary: When Killian Jones booked the all-inclusive Honeymoon trip to Cancun, he didn't plan on taking the trip alone. But hell if that was going to stop him from having some fun. Based on the song by Dierks Bentley.


He looked down at his ticket.

Seat 7A. Looking up, he scanned the rows until his eyes settled on the aforementioned seat. Tucking the small carry-on into the overhead compartment, Killian slid into his seat, placing his book on the cushion next to him.

_Well, at least I won't have to share and armrest with anyone_, he thought with a slight tone of disparagement. Speaking of which, he leafed through the pages of his book, finally catching sight of the faded picture caught in the seam.

Looking down at her face, he couldn't quite help the pang of hurt and desperation that swept through his entire being for just a moment. He could picture her smile clear as day, see her tossing those long black curls over her shoulder as she settled back into the seat beside him, snorting into her hand at the rambunctious family jostling for the window perch two rows in front of him.

But that vision faded in a flash, leaving him with nothing but the faded vinyl of the seat next to him and a ragged edged picture of what could have been. What should have been. He should have bloody known, seen the signs when she started gravitating back towards her snake of an ex. He wanted to give her the world, but in the end it wasn't his world she was looking for.

With a smirk to himself, Killian propped the picture up on the seat back. _There you are Milah, _he thought. _All ready for the trip of a lifetime._

He ignored the raised brow from the portly man who had managed to contort himself into the compartment across the aisle. Well, perhaps he didn't completely ignore the individual (He couldn't help but throw one look his way that suggested, _You think I'm the weird one? Well at least I have enough shame to not dress like tourist-of-the-month on my trip to Heaven on Earth.)_

After all, that's what the brochure promised. Your own little slice of the golden gates all wrapped up in one location of sun, romance, and tropical beverages. He should know, he only poured over locations for hours, dreaming of the perfect place to take Milah sailing out in crystalline blue waters, lying peacefully in the sun as they soaked up the afterglow of their marriage vows.

He was sure many wondered why he was still on the trip. Wouldn't it be easier to forget the abandoned trip to the alter by gluing his nose to the grindstone, burying his head in work and friends and the normalcy of his life? Oh, how he would have liked to do just that. But the damn airline tickets had been so expensive, and the bloody hotel would not rescind on the week of romance, even when he oh so politely inquired how he could have a weekend of romance with a party of one? Killian hung up the phone before the poor girl on the other end even managed to catch up.

Not to mention, the red circle on the calendar that glared at him whenever he ventured into his kitchen, which seemed to be often as of late (He thought about moving a mini-fridge into the living room, ease of access to his alcohol and all that, but then people might think he was actually not handling this well, and we wouldn't want that now, would we?)

So when the date rolled around, he tapped that red circle one last time, grabbed his suitcase, and trudged down the stairs to make his flight. It may not have been the trip he dreamed of, but hell if that would stop him from having the time of his life. Or, at the very least, he could get drunk of his rocker to the sounds of the surf and the scorching sun.

The cabin was slowly starting to fill up as the other passengers jostled their way down the aisle, frantically searching for their seats and straining to fit too-big carry-ons into the available slot. As they shuffled by, he swore he caught a glimpse of something gold. He glanced that way again, but in a second his vision was blocked as the stewardess came down the aisle and began the customary safety rundown.

Emma tucked the headphones in her ears, leaning her head back into the headrest of the rigid seat. _Great, _she huffed. _Even the damn seats are out to get me today._

The events leading Emma to where she currently sat certainly hadn't been some of her finest. By now she should have been laying in the white sands of some far off beach, sipping cool drinks with Ruby and Mary Margaret by her side. She could picture it now, grains of sand tickling her toes and sun kissing her bare skin.

But of course, she had to take one more damn case just days before their paradise getaway. Everything was going so well, she could see her signature on the bottom of the booking papers, filing away another successful catch. But then he had to run. Why do they always think they need to run? She caught up to him a few blocks later. Poor guy: didn't even stand a chance in those worn shoes and baggy jeans. She knocked him to the ground, but unfortunately not without leaving her shoulder in the way of the fall.

Within a few hours, she sat in the hospital in a sling, bickering with her friends and insisting they not delay their trip because of her stupid injury. They finally acquiesced when she insisted she would just be a few days behind, she just had to wait for her damn arm to stop throbbing.

Now, she's three days out on her trip of a lifetime, sitting on a plane all alone next to a man that reeked like he had bathed in sunscreen. _Does he realize the beach rays aren't going to roast his skin at this altitude?_

With a resigned sigh, she turned up the volume of her music, committed to sleeping the hours away until they landed once more.

He knew he had spotted gold. And he didn't know quite why, but he was fixated on it. On her. Well, what he could see of her anyways, which was admittedly, not much. She was sitting just a few rows ahead of him, across the aisle. From this angle, he could only make out the gold tresses that fell in soft curls over her shoulders, the angles of her porcelain face. Strong cheekbones, long lashes. Nothing more.

That, and he had noticed that her head bobbed along to some sort of song, she seemed to be lost in the music sure to be playing out of some small portable device. Her swaying had causes a book tucked next to her to come free, falling with a soft thud into the aisle. She hadn't noticed. He noticed she didn't notice. He should grab it for her, after all, the captain had long ago turned off the seatbelt lights. He could just slide up there and pick it up for her, use it as his chance to see her face. Why he wanted to see her face, he couldn't have told you. He just had a strange itch to see what lay under all that gold.

But just as Killian was about to rise, he heard the creaking of wheels and felt a presence beside him. Turning slightly, he found himself at eye level with an array of alcoholic beverages in tiny portable bottles. Rum. Now that was a welcome sight. _Just a little rum will help this whole trip feel a lot less miserable_, he tried to convince himself as he grabbed the small bottle and twisted its cap.

…

It was meant to only be a little rum, but the bottles of rum were oh so little. And he has two trays to fill to boot. _I have Milah to thank for that. Maybe I should send her a nice postcard expressing my gratitude,_ he chuckled to himself. _Good one, Killian,_ he thought, giving himself a mental pat on the back.

Or maybe he actually had pat himself on the back, judging from the way his poorly dressed aisle companion was side-eying him.

But this time, instead of sneering at the man, he extended his hand and procured a yet unopened drink from the stash in front of him.

"You, my friend, are entirely too sober for my liking," he grinned at the rotund fellow. "It is your vacation, is it not? Why not get started a little sooner."

In fact, he noticed several people around him looked far too somber to be heading somewhere so tropical, and for some reason he has resolved to change that. If he was going to drown his sorrows in cheap liquor, then he was damn well taking a few people down with him.

"Stewardess!" he called out. "Some fine beverages for all my fine friends right here!"

At first she thought it was simply a back beat in her song she had just forgotten, but soon Emma realized the background noise interrupting her journey into peaceful sleep was in fact coming from a few rows behind her.

She popped an earbud out, a frown forming on her face as she tried to identify if it was a grumbling passenger, a whining baby, or some other sort of airplane malfeasance that had disturbed her serenity. It only took a few moments for Emma to turn around, bewildered by the sounds of jubilation coming from her fellow coach passengers. _It sounds like a freaking party back there_, she thought briefly.

It was! A goddamn party had somehow broken out thousands of feet above the ground, and Emma had been none the wiser. She couldn't quite determine if she was more pissed about the noise levels, or the fact that she wasn't invited. All she knew was she was annoyed, and she was determined to find the culprit behind all this.

She scanned the flushed red faces of all the offenders, watching them joke with people they had been complete strangers with just one hour ago. Her eyes latched on to one man within seconds. She couldn't tell you how she knew he had started all this, the man with wayward black hair flying haphazardly around his face, a toned chest apparent from under the blue button down he had seemed to forget to fully finish putting on. If she wasn't seeing red, Emma might have stepped back a moment to admire his form a bit. But she currently was on a war path, and didn't have time for such idle musings.

And why was he talking to a disheveled man that looked like he lived in an 80's luau movie like they had been best friends since birth? _Maybe they had been best friends from birth_, her mind countered. _Well then why are they sitting across the aisle from each other and not next to one another? Wait, why did she care?_

She shook herself out of a quick derailing train of thought and got ready to stand up from her seat and give everyone a piece of her mind. Well, that is, until he glanced up from his seemingly intense discussion and locked eyes with her.

_Holy shit_, her mind panicked as her cheeks blushed furiously red and she careened back into her seat. She wasn't expecting him to have eyes like that. A deep blue that rendered her speechless for a hot second, framed with scruff and heavy eyebrows that gave a just-rolled-out-of-bed look that somehow came off neither lazy nor sloppy.

She quickly shoved her headphones back into her ears, turning up the music full blast. _She wasn't scared of him, not one bit. She just didn't want to make a scene up here where there was nowhere to hide afterwards and nowhere to cool off for the rest of the five-hour ride. That's it. Just don't want to make a scene is all, _she assured herself.

After a few more drinks, he had somehow found himself engaged in a deep discussion within his fine friend next door. So what if his flowers on his shirt clashed so horribly with the pastel pallor of his cargo shorts. Who was Killian to judge, really?

It was in a quick moment where he threw his head back to laugh at something the man had said when he saw her, saw her hazel eyes staring back at him. Well, more like glaring, but he was far too captivated to focus on that. Because he was looking at the face of the girl in gold that had mystified him at takeoff, the girl he had forgotten about briefly in his pursuit to drown away the true reason he was sitting on a plane alone.

In a flash though, her frowning face and condescending stare were gone, as she slid back into her seat and disappeared from his line of sight. In an instant, the fuzz of the alcohol was gone. It didn't matter that the stewardess who looked far too much like his Brunette torment propped up on the seat next to him was trying to lean in close to him and offer him another beverage. He has a single-minded focus now: he was going to see that siren girl's face once more.

Before sinking back into sleep, Emma had dared one more peek back at the college frat party horde conglomerating behind her. She turned cautiously, hoping the man she had locked eyes with would be otherwise engaged. Sure enough, some brown-haired stewardess tucked into a uniform two sizes too small to be regulation was leaned over him, batting her eyelashes in a not-too-subtle display of flirtation.

_Ugh,_ Emma sighed, throwing herself back into her seat. _Of course she would fawn over him. _And of course, her annoyance was nothing more than an emotion fueled with anger that anyone would fluff that man's ego. There absolutely wasn't a pang of jealousy slipped in there somewhere.

She didn't realize she had drifted off until she felt a slight tap on her shoulder. She peeked one eye open, settling a disgruntled gaze on the person who dared disturb her. _Great, my brunette stewardess of choice_, she noticed quickly.

"Compliments of the man in Seat 7A, ma'am," the lady said, handing Emma a small glass of some fruity alcoholic drink. Emma couldn't help but notice a spark of bitterness in her tone. "He said to offer his apologies if your flight had been disturbed by the noise behind you."

Emma dazedly grabbed the drink, looking at it as if it might explode in her hand. She turned slowly, counting back the right number of rows before lifting her eyes to see who her courter was.

No freaking way. She was up before her mind was even fully away of her body's actions, jetting back to where his crooked grinned face was watching her from his seat. As she neared him, the plane hit a patch of turbulence, causing her to stumble slightly and lose all the air of confidence she had managed to give off in her lightning fast walk to his seat.

"Careful lass, wouldn't want to take a tumble in the middle of all these people," he chuckled. "Especially when the seat belt sign is so clearly engaged."

She rolled her eyes at him forcefully, shoving the drink into his hand.

"No thank you."

"I don't know how things customarily work in your world love, but for me when a man buys a woman a drink, he isn't looking to have it gift-wrapped back to him," he said in a lilting accent, blue eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Don't want it," Emma spit out. "I don't need anything binding me to you."

She couldn't help but notice the brief flicker of hurt that passed through his eyes. When he looked down at his hands for a brief moment, seemingly gathering up his next words to say, her gaze flickered to the seat next to him. A seat conspicuously empty amid the sold out crowd on the plane. She just started to take in the picture propped on the back on the chair when he spoke again.

"Sorry love, I was just trying to make amends. I had noticed your less-than-pleased look and figured we had done you some wrong by waking you up, and since I was the ringleader in this whole Marti Gras celebration in the sky, I figured it was my duty to rectify our disturbance."

Well at least he owned up to it. Not that she was forgiving him just because of some pretty words made even more lovely by his soft accent and light candor. Not at all forgiving him.

But then she saw the book lying on the seat beside him, a worn cover showing years of use. It was the same book she always carried when she traveled, a story she collected long ago that always made her remember life at some point could be simple, even broken people could find happiness. Come to think of it, she didn't remember her book being there when she got up. Where was it? She turned around fast, desperately looking at the empty cushion of her abandoned seat.

"It's on the floor, lass," came his voice from behind her.

Sure enough, she glanced down and saw the book lying face down in the aisle next to her seat. But how did he know what she had been searching for. She turned slowly, her eyes losing some of their rough edge as they locked with his gazing back at her.

"Please, uh," he stopped, looking up at her with confusion in his eyes.

"Emma," she answered, immediately knowing why he had slowed his sentence.

"Please, Emma, sit with me for a moment. At least until you finish the drink and I can feel I have properly righted my wrongs."

She rolled her eyes once more, but shrugged her way across his outstretched legs, sliding into the seat next to him as he cleared off his book and the woman's picture, sliding the book carefully into the sleeve in front of his seat and folding the picture less than delicately into the pockets of his backpack at his feet.

As she looked at him once more, grabbing the drink from his hand and cocking one eyebrow as she warily took a sip, she had to catch herself from choking at the dazzling smile he was flashing her way.

Alright, maybe straining her shoulder going after that perp wasn't such a bad thing after all.

As she brushed up next to him, laughing at some poor attempt at a joke he had just thrown her direction, he couldn't help his mind from drifting back to the date circled red on his calendar.

Maybe it was still marking some important date indeed.


End file.
